6 week old sleep pattern. help!

[mummy2pickle]

can anyone else let me know their 6 week olds sleep patterns I seem to think I'm doing something wrong.
my lo sleeps for about an hour in morning 9-10 then a longer sleep in afternoon 2-4 and then the hard work begins. she'll cat nap in evening, 20 mins a go and then won't settle until 1am and then up every 2 hours until 6-7 when she's wide awake ready to get up. this is exhausting me. I've tried all the routine stuff, she has bath, feed then cuddles every night but then wakes up!
is this similar to anyone else, all my friends babies seem to be perfect so I have no-one to compare to

My lo is a bit older, can't really remember what he did at six weeks, its all a bit hazy! At that age a lot of people would recommend keeping their awake time to max 1.5 hours, to prevent them getting overtired. 10am to 2pm is quite a long awake time. Could you bring her out in the pram for a walk around 11.30 so she can nap? I used to keep ds up far too long-he had zero sleepy signs, until one day I realised he was screaming because he was tired. Found a sling was great for getting him to nap.

Sounds like tough going, hope things improve soon.

Yes I'd say the same about overtiredness - my DD is 11 weeks now and only just being able to stay awake for more than a couple of hours at a time. At that age she was sleeping every 1.5 hours. Maybe that's why she's having the catnaps later on in the day, if she is so overtired? I'd try to get her to sleep more in the day to avoid that catnapping evening thing. However she is still so little and they do all kinds of funny things at that age so it might just be that she just isn't that fond of the evenings and is going to be grizzly then. My DD fed pretty much every 2 hours at that age at night too and is only now getting a bit better, so yours will hopefully be able to go for longer stretches in the not too distant future too. Make sure she feeds plenty in the day, too?

My DD is 7&1/2 weeks old, she definitely sleeps better at night when she's had more sleep in the day- strange but think that's how it works! She isn't usually awake for as long as your LO seems to be in the day, her usual little routine is feed, play/awake then a nap and repeat. Definitely agree with trying to get more naps in in the day.

thanks guys it's just a very tiring time. she fights going to sleep too so it a battle all round. I keep being told to keep her awake in evenings then she'll sleep better?! is there any truth in this or just 'old persons saying!' so babies should be sleeping most the day then??

For my DD that saying doesn't apply but every babies different I guess. Is she fighting sleep cos she's too busy looking around? DD does that and I just drape a muslin over her head and my shoulder, it puts her straight to sleep!!

My DS is six weeks old and sleeps 8.30/9pm to 11.30/12pm, feed 12-1am then sleep 1-4am, feed 4-5am, sleep 5-6am sometimes. In the evenings I try and make sure he feeds around 6.30, has a bath at 7.30 then another feed. At 8.30 if hes not asleep I get my mum to walk round cuddling and singing to him which puts him asleep for a couple of hours. I think its because DS can't smell me. Perhaps getting someone else to rock him to sleep at the beginning might help yours sleep for longer. I also have DS in the bed with me now because DS was waking too frequently at night, that might be a good way for both of you to get some sleep. Good luck

Totally agree, sleep begets sleep. Some babies do like a sterile sleep environment, but not many of them really care when they're 6 weeks old (always an exception though!)

I used the attached chart as a guide to awake time length. I'd start to settle to sleep 5 minutes beforehand so as to not miss the window - my baby didn't show tired signs.

www.mybabysleepguide.com/2013/02/average-sleep-charts-by-age.html

mummy re keeping them awake to sleep more, it is an old fashioned saying. It depends on your baby, mine would just scream blue murder and not sleep at all if he got overtired. I do know 3 babies though who never napped for more than 10 minutes at a time but were sleeping for 10 hours at night by 4-6 weeks old. I think that they are definitely a rarity... I know a lot of babies.

Mummy-I don't think keeping babies awake in the evening is a good idea (though we were advised to do this as well) At this age ds would wake from his last nap at 7pm, turn into a very cross baby at 9pm-I'd spend an hour walking him around the house. He would have a bottle at ten and would be very difficult to get down for the night. In hindsight we should have been trying to get him to nap at 8.30...would have saved us a lot of fussy evenings.

It really sounds like your baby isn't getting enough sleep overall. According to nhs guidelines she should be getting about 16ish hours in a 24 hour period. Obviously that's just a guideline but yours seems to be getting around 9 or 10 or something? Have you tried a baby swing? Mine was a lifesaver during day when dd was so young. Also try to get out with pram during day around nap times to encourage her to sleep maybe.